around wondering through all eternity what it was that happened to him. I returned to London in a great hurry by a train that was in no way excited by it, but failed in the end and object I had in view after all, which was to go to the grand concert at Albert Hall in honor of the Shah. I had a strong desire to see that building filled with people once. Albert Hall is one of the many monuments erected to the memory of the late Prince Albert. It is a huge and costly edifice, but the architectural design is old, not to say in some sense a plagiarism; for there is but little originality in putting a dome on a gasometer. It is said to seat 13,000 people, and surely that is a thing worth seeing--at least to a man who was not at the Boston Jubilee. But no tickets were to be had--every seat was full, they said. It was no particular matter, but what made me mad was to come so extremely close and then miss. Indeed, I was madder than I can express, to think that if the architect had only planned the place to hold 13,001 I could have got in. But, after all, I was not the only person who had occasion to feel vexed. Colonel X, a noted man in America, bought a seat some days ago for $10 and a little afterward met a knowing person who said the Shah would be physically worn out before that concert night and would not be there, and consequently nobody else; so the seat was immediately sold for $5. Then came another knowing one, who said the Shah would unquestionably be at the concert, so the colonel went straight and bought his ticket back again. The temporary holder of it only charged him $250 for carrying it around for him during the interval! The colonel was at the concert, and took the Shah’s head clerk for the Shah all the evening. Vexation could go no further than that. V MARK TWAIN GIVES THE ROYAL PERSIAN A “SEND-OFF” LONDON, _June 30, 1873_. For the present we are done with the Shah in London. He is gone to the country to be further “impressed.” After all, it would seem that he was more moved and more genuinely entertained by the military day at Windsor than by even the naval show at Portsmouth. It is not to be wondered at, since he is a good deal of a soldier himself and not much of a sailor. It has been estimated that there were 300,000 people assembled at Windsor--some say 500,000. That was a show in itself. The Queen of England was there; so was Windsor Castle; also an imposing array of cavalry, artillery, and infantry. And the accessories to these several shows were the matchless rural charms of England--a vast expanse of green sward, walled in by venerable forest trees, and beyond them glimpses of hills clothed in Summer vegetation. Upon such a theater a bloodless battle was fought and an honorable victory won by trained soldiers who have not always been carpet knights, but whose banners bear the names of many historic fights.